Cancel culture: an unintended consequence of our digitally interconnected world. No one’s mistakes can be forgotten. Nothing is ever kept secret, and if you don’t act right, you’re getting put on blast.  

We’ve seen it time and time again in the music industry. An artist’s off-the-cuff comment gets turned into a soundbite, and they lose half their followers. Old Tweets and text messages get scrounged up and reposted for the whole world to see.  

I’ve found it both necessary and unreasonable. To a certain extent, it keeps artists accountable when they are in the limelight. On the other hand, it prohibits our favorite icons from ever making mistakes. They have to be absolutely perfect, or else they will lose it all and never be forgiven.  

Right now, Tyler, The Creator is the latest artist to be subjected to cancel culture at the hands of Swifties. Early in his career, Tyler wrote some violent and offensive lyrics on his album “Goblin.” Conveniently, Taylor Swift fans decided to call out the lyrics right after Tyler took Swift’s long-held number one spot on the Spotify Global Artist charts following “CHROMAKOPIA.” 

The young Creator wrote some lyrics about rape, murder and other such acts as a young artist, while noting that the lyrics weren’t true. It’s not right to lie and joke about harming others, of course, but I have a hard time canceling an artist now over lyrics they wrote over a decade ago.  
 

“Goblin” has been around since 2011, but it’s only when Tyler has temporarily dethroned the pop princess that the lyrics get addressed. Swifties are activating cancel culture in the worst way: only giving attention to wrongdoing when it benefits them.  

Some of the backlash comes from when Tyler performed “30 minutes of ‘Chromakopia’” in Boston and he told Swift fans to “go listen to ‘Tron Cat,’” a song that is vulgar on many levels and mentions rape. Some Swifties believed he was directing those harsh lyrics at them. Given how Tyler presents himself, I believe he was really saying, “I’ve never cared what people thought of me, and ‘Tron Cat’ is proof.”  

The situation with The Creator asks whether writing lyrics from a state of mental illness is art or crossing the line. Music can be a place for artists to express their darkest thoughts. Maybe Tyler shouldn’t have created such a dark imaginary world, but we have to acknowledge that when he wrote those lyrics, he was 19, using music as a creative outlet.  

As a culture, we have worked harder to hold people accountable for the unhinged things they say and be mindful of the things we joke and tell stories about, but sometimes, we have to acknowledge that the past had a different set of standards, remind ourselves again to act better and move on.  

Diddy is at the epicenter of cancel culture right now. With over 100 open cases for rape and other unwanted sexual advances, I think we can all agree Diddy needs to be locked up and never forgiven. He has spent years physically and emotionally harming people with no intent to change.  

But what about all the other artists who have been seen at a Diddy party over all these years? Diddy started making music in the early 1980s — he’s seen a lot of people in that amount of time. That doesn’t mean every single artist ever affiliated with Diddy needs to be canceled, too.  

Kanye West seems to have been mostly forgiven for his antisemitic comments and remarks about slavery being a choice. These were bad moments for Ye, but over time, people have chopped his comments up to be a manifestation of his mental health issues.  

I think we owe it to artists to treat them like humans — we need to let these cases with Diddy play out a little more before canceling every person who has ever attended a Diddy party.  

I’m not saying no one is worthy of being canceled. Diddy, R. Kelly and Harvey Weinstein should be in prison. I do believe that in cases like Tyler, like Kanye, we can forgive with certain criteria. 

Graphic by Livi Davis.